


National holiday

by myoue



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Netflix and Chill, in its most literal meaning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7192850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myoue/pseuds/myoue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren and Levi are best friends that share a Netflix account. But since it's always billed to Levi's credit card, every month Eren owes Levi a 'Netflix Favour'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> what is this lol i'm writing too much for a goddamn netflix fic
> 
>  _netflix for beginners:_ a database of movies/tv shows that can be accessed anywhere with an online connection including but not limited to computers, phones, and tvs as long as u log in to ur account. the most standard plan for 2 separate devices watching at the same time and streaming in 720p is monthly payments of $9.99 or something

 

“I don’t know. Pick something.”

“Action? Comedy? Anime? Pick something, Levi.”

“ _You_ pick something.”

Eren lets out a frustrated groan, almost throwing the remote at the TV screen if not at Levi’s face for being so indecisive. “You’re the one who wanted to come over! So, pick something or I’m kicking you out.”

Levi pauses, staring at their current options on the TV because he’s intent on ignoring Eren’s glare towards him even though they’re sitting literally two centimetres apart on the couch. “You pick something,” Levi muffles into the couch pillow he has against his face.

Eren just about screams, grabbing at the pillow to smack Levi with it, but Levi has too tight a grip on it to let him. They struggle a bit with Eren shaking both him and the pillow together back and forth on the couch, teeth baring threateningly close to Levi’s face, before he gives up to stalk to the kitchen for what Levi can only assume is a break before he comes back to pester him all over again.

They share a Netflix account because that’s what best friends do. They share things to save money.

“I’m not the one saving money,” Levi had said before after only two months into the agreement and two transactions of the monthly $9.99 billed to his credit card. “You owe me,” he was saying one day when they’re eating out at a family restaurant and just before he would force Eren to take the whole check instead of splitting it like they usually do.

“What? What do I owe you?” Eren had replied innocently, as if just his company with Levi was enough to cover his share of the expense.

“You owe me your share of five bucks,” Levi stated. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“Fine, I’ll buy you an ice cream or something.”

“Actually, you owe me ten bucks since two months have gone by.”

“Fine, I’ll buy you two ice creams.”

“I don’t want an ice cream every single month,” Levi had retorted. “Be a little more creative, yeah? I’m doing this so we can watch quality shows and movies.”

“How about I just give you a five dollar bill.”

“That works.”

Eren had taken that back almost immediately, not like Levi had expected any less. “No, I’m not doing that. I’ll come up with something good! Every month I’ll buy you something seriously cool—a Netflix Favour, if you will. Just for you, every month.”

He had smiled then—a gross cheesy smile that had made Levi question whether getting Netflix was even a good idea or not. If it meant that Levi would be bombarded monthly by the craziest uses of five dollars that Eren could come up with, Levi figures he might as well not be reimbursed at all.

For example, for Month 1 and 2 Eren really had bought Levi two different flavours of ice cream. Since Levi had said his favourite flavour was vanilla during Month 1, Eren had opted to get him sweet potato flavour for Month 2 that, after lots of pushing and shoving in an ice cream shop, the cup of which had nearly landed on the floor before Eren had insisted on a made up rule that Levi doesn’t actually get a say in what he gets. It was already then that Levi realized these Netflix Favours would not be about his best interests at all.

In Month 5, his Favour had been a Cheap Tuesday movie ticket. (“ _Why the hell are we paying to see a movie when we bought Netflix specifically to watch movies?_ ” Levi had said.) (“ _Shut up_ ,” Eren had replied.)

In Month 12, Eren had gotten him a get well plant because Levi had been sick with a cold for three excruciatingly long allergy-season weeks. (“ _You should have gotten me a get well plant anyway. Cheapening out and using your Netflix Favour_.”) (“ _Shut up_. _You have a cold not a terminal illness_ ,” Eren had said. “ _Although three weeks with a cold is really something_ …”)

By the time Month 24 came around, Eren had done everything from getting up to get that thing over there because Levi hadn’t wanted to move, to giving him various receipts from donating $5 to charities online. Levi didn’t even think this constituted as reimbursement anymore. No, he’s very clearly sure it doesn’t.

All of this just because they share a Netflix account.

“You better have picked something by the time I come back,” Eren calls from the kitchen.

Levi fumbles for the remote that had ended up falling on the floor to flip through the menu and arbitrarily choose what looks like some combined action-comedy movie. That’s good enough. Levi really doesn’t care what movie they do end up watching for the next two hours.

The narration is already starting by the time Eren comes back with one opened can of beer that he holds in his hand and one unopened one that he sets on the table in front of Levi.

“Good, you picked something,” Eren says, sinking down into the couch beside him, legs spread. “What is it?”

“I have no idea.” Levi swipes the can of beer from Eren’s hand to chug down.

“That was mine,” Eren says flatly.

“Oh, my bad.”

-

They only reside in the same apartment building, they don’t actually live together. Although, some of their neighbours would say otherwise, not that Levi ever pays attention to the old grannies that live down the hall and gossip constantly (about them).

He knows pretty much when Eren gets home because he can hear the door slam on the other side of the wall around 6 o’clock, and then the television news is turned on briefly before quieting down almost immediately again. That’s when Levi can tell Eren’s turned on Netflix. Can’t even wash up or anything first.

It’s not as if Levi’s intent on listening every time—it just so happens that he takes notice sometimes, that’s all. He’s meant to tell Eren about the thinness of the walls, and how he can hear practically everything including the grunts and odd swearing when Eren’s accidentally bumped into furniture, but the topic of conversation has never really come up. And only because he doesn’t want Eren to start feeling self-conscious or anything. Not that he would, anyway.

Scanning down his own Netflix profile, Levi sees a bunch of new movies in his List to watch later, presumably added by Eren sometime in the past few days.

First of all, this is a matter in and of itself entirely.

It doesn’t make any sense as to why Eren would ever think Levi would want to watch half of these things, from genres all over the place, and a good proportion of them having reviews that Levi already knows are next to crap. But Eren genuinely wants to watch these though—not caring about how good or bad they seem because he’s the type to want to try _everything_ at least once. Not that Levi cares much about planning to watch certain things, so the List largely remains untouched until they’re sitting scrolling through it together.

Still, he wishes Netflix had a messaging system so that Levi could write to Eren ‘ _Stay off my profile_ ’. Levi can already hear the ‘ _Shut up_ ’ now.

The lack of a useless messaging system doesn’t completely stop him, though. Levi actually grabs his phone to send Eren a text message, something along the lines of:

‘ _If you’re going to be on my profile so much why don’t we just fucking merge them together? Share that too?_ ’

It takes Eren about five minutes to respond. ‘ _I don’t mind. Let’s combine our names too while we’re at it. I’ve got one. How about Ereri?_ ’

They don’t end up merging profiles. Mostly because Levi has nothing to say to that obnoxious combined name which is downright disgusting, not because Eren won the argument. Which he didn’t.

Eren also continues to add things to his profile regardless of the amount of threatening texts Levi sends.

On offbeat occasions, he considers adding random junk to Eren’s List just to get even. But when he goes onto his profile just to check things out, just to see if there’s anything substantially different, there isn’t actually anything at all in Eren’s own List.

-

Eren never liked to watch sad things. He’s the type to bawl his eyes out at anything that even remotely predicates an unfortunate event, and even (and especially) certain uplifting inspiring things would have him tearing up.

“I hate sad things,” Eren would mutter through a thick throat and hazy eyes after something or someone had died and the credits were rolling.

“What would you rate the movie?” Levi would ask, breathing out as well, and side eying the pillow Eren’s holding that probably has about a pound of salt dried up in it by now.

Eren wouldn’t ever miss a beat when answering, as if he had been thinking about what he would score the movie the entire time they were watching it. “8.5,” he claims through a scurry of more tears.

Levi nods, just barely holding up as well since Eren’s crying seems to also make him cry more than anything. “Me, too. I would say 9.”

He complains, but he still ends up giving it a high score.

-

“You know what I really want to do?” Eren says to him one day while they’re perusing the aisles of a nearby convenience store. Levi doesn’t know why they’re here—Eren had said he was bored and didn’t want to go home yet.

“What?” Levi asks.

Eren picks up a ceramic trinket in the shape of a frog before setting it back down again. “I want to see a drive-in movie. You know, one of those drive-in theatres where you drive in with your car and watch a movie on the big screen from inside your car?”

“I know what a drive-in movie is.”

“Well,” Eren exclaims, “I want to see one. Wouldn’t it be cool? Just to try it? I don’t even know if they have any more drive-in theatres around. I think they’ve all closed down.”

“You don’t even have a car,” Levi tells him blandly, inspecting that ceramic frog that Eren had picked up earlier. Eren says something like _dammit_ from the aisle over. “I think they have those community event things where they project a movie on a big screen in the park and you can sit on the grass and watch it,” Levi suggests, though he’s not totally ecstatic about doing that, either.

Eren seems to consider that, though. “Hm, you would come with me if we do that though, right?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on! I’m invoking my Netflix Favour! You have to.”

Levi doesn’t have any expression on his face. “What? How is this _you_ doing _me_ a favour?”

“Well—you see.” Eren laughs awkwardly as he struggles to come up with an answer, beginning to sweat when Levi holds his gaze and doesn’t let go. “You’ll regret it if you don’t!” Eren blurts, turning red from exhaustion and brain overload.

“What the hell does that mean?” Levi pushes.

“You know!”

“No, I don’t know.”

Levi’s good at keeping a neutral expression, even when Eren begins to stutter. “It means—! I’m doing you a favour because you need to get out more.”

“Now that’s frankly untrue.”

“What part of it?”

Eren suddenly darts away towards the front of the store before he can even wait for an answer, as if just like that he’d somehow won the argument, which is a common occurrence in their relationship. The running away, not Eren winning the argument.

Levi sighs to himself in the empty aisle, guessing he’ll be dragged to some park movie viewing sometime in the future. Though, it’s not as if he’s completely against it—if Eren’s there, he doesn’t think he’ll have such a bad time. It’s only his ass on the grass that he’s not entirely looking forward to. Especially if it’s wet.

“Here,” Eren says once Levi’s arrived at the store counter and his red face has calmed down somewhat to a little more than a light tinge.

He holds out the tiny ceramic frog to place in Levi’s hand, of which Levi has no idea how or when Eren had taken because he could have sworn he saw Eren put the thing back. It’s small, barely more than a few centimetres in diameter, and could likely be squished accidentally on the way home if Levi’s not careful.

“Thanks,” Levi says, a little bewildered, and pocketing the trinket with the price tag sporting $4.99 still attached. He feels like by now he should be expecting these surprises, but for some reason they still end up catching him off guard every time.

-

Eren’s always been skinny, lanky even. It’s not as if his diet is bad, but working out has never really been at the forefront of either of their minds, opting to stay in and watch marathons all night long. More often than not, they have to remember that it’s way past dinnertime, and scouring the fridge for something to eat at 3:30 in the morning is something that Levi has to do before Eren falls asleep without anything in his stomach all night.

“Eat this,” he would say (demand), bringing Eren back a freshly made microwave dinner that he’d heated up in four and a half minutes hoping that Eren wouldn’t have nodded off by the time he comes back.

“Thanks,” Eren mumbles, just about on the verge of doing so anyway.

Levi doesn’t have anything less than crap in his fridge, and he’s been meaning to do some proper grocery shopping—shopping that doesn’t include getting premade meals that can be prepared in five minutes or less. It’s mostly because he doesn’t have the time nor the patience to cook anything using raw ingredients, but the lack of anything nutritious comes back to bite him in the ass when all he can give Eren is a single slab of processed turkey meat and some sad mashed potatoes. He’s only serving him this as a last resort. Next time he’ll have something better to offer, Levi thinks.

He watches Eren eat to make sure he does eat, even if Eren’s only slowly munching away on the food, eyes drooping and drowsy, and holding up the wobbling steaming plastic container near his face.

“What do you rate the movie?” Levi asks, just trying to keep Eren awake at least to finish his food.

“Mmm.” Eren has a face full of food, but still answers anyway. “7.”

“Yeah? I say 8.”

Eren nods in agreement, too lazy and out of it to debate Levi on their different scorings. Not that Levi expected much at three in the morning. Their scorings are always pretty close, anyway.

After a while, when Eren yawns one too many times to be able to eat efficiently, Levi ends up caving to say “You can sleep if you want” as if he’s the one who has to give Eren permission to do so. And, honestly, Levi often finds that he willingly takes on that responsibility.

It takes Eren a while to shake his head in response. But he finally does, not even putting down the mashed potatoes. “I can’t sleep,” he admits with a lull of his head that doesn’t really make his argument.

“Yes, you can. You were just about to five seconds ago.”

Eren moves on the couch to be able to comfortably lay his head against Levi’s shoulder, still chewing that last bite, and letting out a low sigh at the same time as if he’s been holding it in this whole time. “I can now.”

His hair splays against Levi’s cheek, something that Levi’s always found annoying since Eren _always_ does this, using Levi’s shoulder as some sort of pillow—whether it’s during a boring movie that Eren insists he’s still awake for even though he’s barely conscious, when Eren’s literally standing, falling asleep on his feet, and using Levi more as a pillar to hold himself up rather than as somewhere to rest his eyes for a few seconds.

So when the plastic container, still with more than a few bites of potato left, falls gently to Levi’s lap with only a teetering grip just barely holding onto it, Levi grumbles tiredly, “Sleep in your bed, Eren,” to an empty room.

Leaving food out overnight for the bugs to start crawling into and around their home is definitely not in Levi’s best interest. So, he cleans up the container and their mess on the table with sluggish resolve and less care than he would normally have since the food is just barely rinsed out before being thrown in the trash. He may or may not regret that in the morning.

It’s also not in Levi’s best interest to drag an unconscious body outside and across the hallway. With nothing less than keen tactical positioning and great effort, he manages to piggyback Eren to his own bed, a bed just barely big enough for himself but over the years has somehow grown in size and comfort to fit the both of them whenever necessary.

Levi drops Eren on top of it before pushing his limp body aside to collapse down as well, not paying much attention to how many limbs Eren has hanging off the edge.

The exhaustion hits him right then and there as Levi pulls the blanket the best he can over the both of them, mumbling that Eren most definitely owes him for this before he falls asleep himself.

-

When Levi awakes, Eren is already up—sitting up halfway on the bed and staring at the wall. It’s still dark, Levi has no idea what time it is, but Eren always gets up before him whether because of work or otherwise. He’s an early riser whereas Levi rather likes to get his typical six hours of sleep by going to bed late and waking up as late as possible.

He’s lying face down in the very middle of the bed, can’t see Eren’s face even as he continues to sit motionlessly on the edge. But when Levi shifts to try and squint at the digital clock behind him on the nightstand, Eren turns back around to look at him.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Levi nods the best he can, groggy and wanting to push his face back into the pillow. “What time is it?” he slurs even as he stares right at the numbers on the clock but can’t seem to digest what they mean.

“It’s 7,” Eren answers with what seems like a bit of withdrawal in his voice than usual. “You need to get up.”

“I’m tired,” Levi says, muffled.

“Seriously, get up and go take your shower.”

It isn’t that Eren’s not usually demanding and maybe even crankier than Levi in the mornings because his nagging is the only way Levi can properly get up. Even now as Levi begins to show signs of going right back to sleep, shoving his face further into the pillow so he can cut off his breathing and pass out the old-fashioned way, he can feel Eren shaking his shoulder briskly back and forth and the urgency in his voice starts to sound more and more like yelling than firm persuasion in his ear drums way too early in the morning.

“Fine,” Levi exclaims when he’s had enough and the shaking has practically doomed him for going back to sleep anyway. He swats at Eren’s hand, rolls himself lazily to the side so he can lay his feet against the floor and push himself mechanically out of bed, as he stands where he can see Eren frowning at him, looking a bit peaked. “What?”

Eren opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it back up to say curtly, “You should get a bigger bed. We’re not kids anymore.”

Levi has the time to scoff before stalking off to the bathroom. “Maybe you can save up your Netflix Favours and buy me one,” is the first thing that comes to his head. Eren doesn’t say anything else.

It’s when Levi closes the bathroom door, about to strip down so he can get in the shower, when he happens to notice something pulling.

Yawning, he looks down to find he’s sporting the biggest fucking boner—and it’s not even like he’s a kid anymore as Eren so kindly pointed out just earlier. But there it is, refusing to move or disappear even as Levi attempts to close his eyes to will it away unsuccessfully. Right now is really not the best time for this.

But then—it’s right then that Levi realizes, fully naked and half a foot halted into the shower spray, that it actually isn’t even a workday for him today. There’s no reason for him to get up as early as seven in the morning and rush into the cold embrace of a shower just to start the day. So, why on Earth did Eren, would Eren…

Instead of getting into the shower, Levi draws himself back out, puts the seat of the toilet down to sit, and stares questionably at his dick. He squints his eyes, out of both exhaustion and something else, and wonders idly if Eren had seen anything.

And then Levi jerks off in the shower, surprisingly easy and able to do so.

-

“I’ll learn to fuckin’ cook for you, my god.”

“No, you will not,” Levi retorts, shoving Eren off but it’s no use when Eren just comes slithering back to stick on him like some sort of overprotective malevolent octopus. “And I’m not saying that as a command,” Levi says. “I’m saying that as a statement because I know you’ll never do any such thing. That’s why it’s been years and neither of us can cook.”

“What!” Eren repeats, “What!! No… there’s no way—how could I let this happen.”

He’s an unattractive mess as he lays himself all over Levi as if the perfectly good pillow on the other side of the couch just isn’t good enough to snuggle with. It lies still, forgotten, and less addled with the stench of beer than is now currently intruding its way all over Levi’s face.

“Gross…” Levi mutters loud enough that he knows Eren will hear but not think anything of it.

“I never wanted this… I wanted us to learn how to fend for ourselves, you know?” Eren continues on with heavy regret.

Levi eyes the seven empty beer cans on the coffee table, the grip Eren has on his arm. “You’re really fending for yourself well,” Levi says.

Eren laughs. “I think I am?” he replies as a question, sighing. “At least one of us should cook… so they can cook for the other person. And then we won’t starve.”

“I don’t like starving,” Levi agrees. At least, it’s the most sensible thing Eren’s said all night.

“Me neither.”

Because Eren’s just about to fall asleep on him _again_ after coming home, insisting that Levi come over or else his incessant knocking will wake up the whole damn floor, and then proceed to drink more than his fair share of alcohol just so that he can rate the movie they watched together as _5-no-5-and-a-half_ because partway through he’d started to actually feel sorry for how bad the movie was.

But even as Eren’s eyes have been glazed shut the last half hour, his hands have been wandering around the dips in the couch, Levi’s legs, trying to find another stray can of beer to drink. If Levi hadn’t known better he would have thought Eren was trying his luck to feel him up.

“No,” Levi chastises like some sort of mother. He grabs Eren’s wandering hand and holds it imprisoned in his own. “You’re not having anymore. Too bad,” he adds just to be extra cruel.

Eren whines, “Why…”

Drunk Eren is even worse than sleepy Eren, Levi thinks. “You owe me for this, too…” he murmurs.

“I don’t have anything,” Eren slurs, breathing heavily, and wiping a hand all the way down his face. “I don’t have anything else to give you… I can’t—I don’t know what else to do… It’s so hard to think of something different for you every month, you know…”

His head lolls on the back of the couch, eyes closed, and the hand still enclosed with Levi’s is brought up to clutch at his shirt where his heart is, as if he’s having trouble breathing.

“What do you want this month?” Eren asks.

“I don’t know.”

“See!” Eren breathes out in exasperation, bringing his hands down to flop against his legs and Levi’s legs. Levi has no idea what he’s doing. “You never tell me what you want, and if you do it’s, like, buy milk on the way home. What the hell! Stop drinking so much goddamn milk.”

Levi’s silent for a bit, contemplating and rubbing the skin of Eren’s hand back and forth with his thumb, grown hot and warm since Eren started raving. But Eren’s skin is always warm, even when he’s not drunk and trying to solicit hints for gifts. “I’m trying to grow taller,” Levi admits, just because Eren probably won’t remember him saying this in the morning.

It doesn’t seem like that really sunk in for Eren as he becomes engrossed in whatever they’re now watching on TV—some nature documentary about titanic beasts.

“Learn to cook for the both of us,” Levi tells him offhandedly. “That’s a good Netflix Favour, right?”

 “If you learn to cook with me.”

“You want us to share cooking lessons, too?”

“Maybe.”

Levi sighs, staring at their hands still clasped together. Maybe they should have this conversation again in the morning. “Buy some better food on your way home, then,” Levi suggests as a last resort. “So we don’t die before we’re forty.”

“Now that’s not enough.”

Seriously, now. Before Levi’s about to protest that Eren’s really making this difficult for him, Eren does it for him.

“I’m really trying, okay!” Eren exclaims. “I really want to get you something good every month, something that’s useful or meaningful to you in some way. But it’s so hard to think of things that you’ll like? And I don’t have a lot of confidence in the things that I can do? So I end up getting you crap every time. Just tell me if it’s bad, okay? Otherwise we don’t have to do this anymore. You don’t have to keep paying for my Netflix for me. It’s honestly fine.”

He turns away, takes his hand out from Levi’s to wipe at something that Levi can’t see. And he doesn’t know if this is the alcohol talking or if this has really been something on Eren’s mind all this time or a combination of both, but Levi feels it dent in his chest.

“You didn’t like this arrangement this whole time?”

He had no idea all of this was anything more than just a casual thing. He didn’t let it be anything more than just casual. It isn’t as if he was asking for something more than a minor inconvenience, like a stop on the way home, and he never wanted it to be anything more. Five dollars a month had still always been five dollars a month, but—and Levi had noticed this a while ago—it seems like it was no longer about five dollars. It was about getting something, anything, that Levi would like. Like a birthday present or a Christmas gift every single month.

When had it been that Eren started to see more than that? Started wanting to give more and more every time? And when Levi had responded exactly as he’d always had, when had it been that Eren had started to see his nonchalance and lack of excitement as lack of approval and a challenge to keep topping himself?

And then Levi realizes how much of a burden this whole thing might be on Eren. Having to designate a specific time and date and price for gift-giving. Every thirty days or so, five bucks, no exclusions. Levi wouldn’t have cared if Eren had missed a month or if the weight and value of the thing was a little bit under or even if this whole thing was forgotten altogether. But that’s not something he gets to decide when he’s not the one giving. This is the way Eren is, and he’s known that for a long time.

But stopping this, stopping all of this, having an excuse to hang out because of Netflix, an excuse to go out to dinner together because Eren was going to pay for his dessert, suddenly it’s not what Levi wants at all. It panics him when he thinks about all of this just coming to a halt. All of this that was worth so much more than the five dollars Eren was giving him every time.

“It’s not that I don’t like this arrangement,” Eren says quickly, shoulders stiff, and crinkling his hands into the folds of his jeans. “I just want to get you something that I _know_ you’ll like. You know? I know I should trust you when you say it’s fine, but I want to get you something you’ll _really_ like because _I_ want to feel satisfied. Is that… so damn selfish? I feel like shit because I’ve known you for so long and I should know you better than this…”

And then he looks at Levi, looking for something, anything, that he could do as if there’s anything he _can_ do.

One of the reasons why Levi could never put a name to anything he really wants from Eren is because there’s nothing more, there’s nothing left. If there are things that they both need or things that they should probably have like a healthier diet or a better system for recommending each other movies on Netflix or their two lives staying exactly as they are now, then there are some things that are quite simply out of Eren’s control. There aren’t things that Levi necessarily wants himself because whenever he’s ever thought about it, there isn’t anything that he’s ever wanted more than what he’s already got.

“Kiss me,” Levi says.

Eren’s eyes widen just as Levi thought they might. He’s frozen in spot on the couch, and frankly so is Levi because what he’s blurted so casually just now is not only something that’s never quite solidified as a real thought in Levi’s mind until now but he thinks Eren might have sobered up by now to remember it in the morning.

And in the next second, Eren is leaning over, has a hand on either side of Levi’s head against the couch, until the feeling of being boxed in with nowhere to go creeps through Levi’s skin and warms his neck and his face. Eren licks his lips, and is already kissing Levi halfway through one of his blinks.

At first there isn’t anything, not anything besides the feeling of Eren being unbearably close, closer than they’ve ever been before.

Levi can’t seem to move even as Eren’s lips do, soft, and trying to coax Levi’s to do something that Levi can only respond with unwarranted gasps to whenever Eren does literally anything. It’s too much and too little all at the same time. His heart races nonetheless, threatening to make him more breathless than he already is, threatening to drown his ears with the blood already pounding there, and Eren refuses to let him go.

His nose brushes against Levi’s, and Levi brings a hand up to grasp at Eren’s shoulder—to be able to hold onto something, to bring Eren in closer, Levi doesn’t know. The alcohol on Eren's breath stings him.

When Eren finally draws back, Levi is able to open his eyes. When did Eren manage to get completely on top of him? He feels hazy, like he was the one who was drunk this whole time. Eren’s lips part, and Levi thinks he’s about to be kissed again.

“That was worth five bucks, huh?” Eren whispers. He smiles but his eyes say otherwise—looking for that approval. Still.

When Levi doesn’t respond, can’t find anything within him to respond with, Eren hops off of him, lets go of his hand, and leaves in the direction of the kitchen. Levi is out of there before Eren can come back.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s only making things worse as he stands outside of Eren’s door like an idiot, hesitates going back in, hesitates going back to his place. What the fuck is he doing?

His hand is already back on Eren’s doorknob, resting there on the cold metal to remind himself that he can’t leave, shouldn’t leave, won’t leave. He’s already just barely hanging on, running out and leaving Eren completely alone while he’s drunk likely passed out on the kitchen floor from the day’s events.

It was unintentional. It had slipped out. He hadn’t meant to ask something like that of Eren, and he hadn’t in a million years thought that Eren would actually—

With his other hand, cold and unbearably clammy, Levi grips at the hair on his head, slipping down his face. He remembers Eren being on top of him, making his toes curl and the tips of his fingers clench into the soft fabric of Eren’s clothes.

Until Levi’s hand stops to touch his lips. He doesn’t know if they’re still wet because of saliva that’s his or Eren’s.

But just thinking about what happened not even three minutes ago is enough to distract Levi from realizing the doorknob falling away from his hand and the door opening to reveal Eren standing there staring blankly at him, definitely not passed out on the kitchen floor. Shit, suddenly Levi’s get away plan crumbles away as well.

Eren doesn't say anything yet but a lot of emotions well up across his face at once, many of which are because he’s definitely sobered up now—Levi keeps thinking about his sobriety because he wishes it weren’t true. If only Eren had been just a little bit more tipsy. Things would have been so much easier, then.

But there’s something of relief that flickers across Eren’s softening features, and Levi can't help sharing in its effects as well.

 “Are you okay?” Eren asks carefully.

“Yeah, I just…” Levi says, not quite looking at him. “I was just getting some air.”

It’s the truth, even if there is no more better air in the hallway than there is in Eren’s room. But it doesn’t seem to convince Eren that everything is okay. It doesn’t even convince himself that he’s okay. Years of interaction with someone Levi thought he knew everything about has no longer adequately prepared him for what to do when one of them seems to have crossed some sort of line. And Levi’s not sure which of them is the one who did the crossing.

“I was thinking I would just… head on home, actually,” Levi states robotically, accidentally licking his lips and finding with astounding clarity that all he can think about is the taste of Eren. He tries his best not to let the heat rise up to his face and settle there, tries to keep his voice even whilst swallowing the breath that’s undoubtedly Eren’s in his mouth, but after all this time it doesn’t seem like he’s any better at hiding his emotions than Eren is.

 “Wait,” he interrupts, stopping Levi dead in his tracks with more than just the grip he now has on Levi’s wrist. “Can we not just leave it off like this? Please?”

As much as Levi wants to move, to go back home and catch his breath for real this time, his feet are planted firmly on the ground. If anything his feet might even just move their way right back into the apartment in front of him with the next utterance from Eren’s mouth, just because he’s asking with those eyes and that blush and that pleading insistency.

“Yeah,” Levi replies shortly and unable to find any more words to properly explain himself. It’s safe to look back up at Eren seeing as he’s not the only one having trouble making eye contact.

“Listen, I—um.” Eren scratches at the back of his head. “I didn’t mean to get carried away.”

“I know.” He just wants to get this over with.

“If I did, I mean.”

“You didn't.”

Levi knows that Eren was just obliging him, just going along with his whims. Maybe because Levi doesn’t have so many of those—it's always Eren who wants to go there right now when Levi’s more when-they-have-time. He's been dragged to out-of-the-way cake shops and walks around uptown because Eren was the one who'd said they’d have a lot of fun together. Why is it he’s always right when he says that?

“It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to…” Eren says slowly.

So, maybe it wasn’t too farfetched of a thought to want to give something back for all of the times that Eren’s more of a doer than him. Even if he has a hard time coming up with good ideas. Even if asking for a kiss seems presumptuous and completely asinine. Even if this whole Netflix thing totally backfired on him. He doesn’t want to disappoint Eren in any capacity.

 “I know.”

“I won’t do it again,” Eren tells him hurriedly now, and Levi can feel just how warm and desperate Eren’s gotten from the grip he still has on Levi’s wrist. “Not if you don’t want me to… or if it was a mistake. I just, I don’t want this to be like an awkward thing. We’ll always be friends, right?”

Yeah, they’re just friends.

“Please say something.”

There are a lot of things on the tip of Levi’s tongue.

For one, he can't help noticing Eren’s plaid shirt crumpled with creases folding everywhere of which desperately needs some ironing work done on it because it looks like he’s slept in it for weeks and never once put it in the dryer or on an ironing board. Levi’s got a fold up board at home. He can only remember one time before that Eren’s come over to use it in a hurry before a job interview, and this is because he didn’t know how to fold it back up after he was done and just left it sitting open in the middle of Levi’s floor.

It’s annoying to see him treat his clothes like this when Levi has a perfectly good clothes iron at his place that could be used more than once every eternity.

Second, the fact that Eren just said ‘friends’ and ‘mistake’ in the same breath makes Levi’s blood run cold and his heart palpitate into insanity.

Third, Eren had called himself selfish earlier for wanting to give Levi something that would also satisfy himself. So, what does that make Levi?

They’re best friends that share a Netflix account among a million other things because it benefits the both of them. Aren’t things enough as they are?

Levi’s cold clammy hands grip into a fist, and Eren seems to notice the movement, opens his mouth to say something else. He might apologize again. He might blame this on himself again. Why is it that with all this, all Levi can think about is being selfish?

“I’m in love with you,” Levi blunders out before Eren can say anything.

The words reverberate a lot longer in the air than Levi would like them to, ringing in his ears, assaulting him. He can’t imagine what it must be like for Eren to hear it. Even when he refuses to look at Eren properly he can already feel most of his senses clog up, drowning out reality, and the grip on his wrist finally falls loose where his arm now hangs limply at his side.

It’s like Eren can’t comprehend the words either when all he looks is some combination of flabbergasted and offended. His eyebrows draw together, his mouth closes. Actually, Levi can’t quite interpret what Eren looks like.

“It’s not a big deal,” Levi chatters on, opting for a short mechanical shrug of his shoulders. “Just, if you were wondering why I asked... _that_ of you earlier. Well, that’s why. I suppose.”

Eren continues to stand stiff at the doorway for a long, long while. Almost inhumanly long. If he’s trying to wrack his brain for hard evidence that points to these feelings that Levi may have been giving off all this time, he’s not going to find anything. Actually, it’s not even that. There’s just no way Levi would have been acting any differently all this time. This is simply how it’s always been. And what’s really the difference between love between friends and love between lovers?

“Since when?” Eren asks seriously, quietly. He seems cast off, in another world.

“Since…? I think I’m still trying to figure that out myself, to be honest,” Levi responds.

That isn’t very convincing at all. “Well, since when did you first think of the word ‘love’…” Eren stutters right there. “…when it came to me?”

It’s hard to think when he’s put on the spot like this, and Levi’s brain is already fuzzy as it is. He rubs at his face with the pads of his fingertips as if that might jog his memory somehow. “I don’t know, I think I first entertained the thought when we were fifteen.”

Eren splutters, “F-Fifteen!”

“And then I didn’t really think about it too concretely since then. So stop asking me what I don’t know.”

This is a pathetic confession, and Levi doesn't blame Eren for actually beginning to laugh shakily. He seems to laugh at everything, really, trying to sound lighthearted in front of Levi. He asks if Levi is serious and of course he is. How could he be anything but? Who would joke at a time like this?

“I—um, I didn’t know,” Eren breathes with a heavy voice, looking dizzy with everything. “This whole time, you never said anything…”

“Well, I’m saying it now,” Levi cuts him off. Because even as they keep dancing around the subject in the middle of this hallway where all of their neighbours are listening through paper thin walls, Eren still hasn’t said anything back yet.

But no. That’s not what Levi should be wanting or expecting out of all this. He didn’t mean to thrust Eren with the responsibility of his feelings—that’s not what the purpose of doing all this should be. He only wished to have out with everything, to get this thing off his chest, so he can breathe a little easier since it’s become so unbearable lately. Just so he could see what confessing would be like. So he could see what kissing Eren would feel like. So Eren would finally know how much he's appreciated. Levi hadn’t realized just how much he’d been suffocating under the weight of all these things he couldn’t even put a name to until he looked around and saw himself anchored to the bottom of the ocean, where the water echoes only of thoughts of Eren.

 “I’m not asking for anything of you,” he assures Eren, just because it looks like he might turn around, slam the door in Levi’s face, and never look back. Not that he’s the kind of person that would ever do that, let alone to Levi.

“Oh,” Eren says in a tone that Levi can’t quite place.

The word rings out hollowly until everything around them turns deafeningly silent.

Why exactly does Levi have to keep looking towards Eren’s eyes, glazed with nothing else but concern, frantically trying to look for something that’s not there? His skin prickling not with excitement but with an ache that only continues to get worse and worse? As Eren blinks, seeming to only wait for the time to pass by with nothing more to say, why in the hell does it hurt so much when Levi continues to get nothing he expected? What exactly did he expect?

The occasional flicker of the dim hallway light reminds Levi that there really is nothing special about any of this at all. He wishes he could have timed this better, or at least given some amount of planning to this—maybe to be in a park instead with some decent scenery around, like that not-really-drive-in park movie viewing. He could have said something while they were alone on the grass, way in the back, underneath a shady maple or cherry blossom tree. He's not that picky.

But they had to have this conversation in a stale-aired fucking apartment complex hallway with fraying carpet and yellowing walls. If they were even on the roof of this place, that might have made it easier to take all of this seriously. Eren deserves literally anything else but this. 

“Well, that’s all I wanted to say. Have a good night,” Levi slews out.

He turns on his heel, but almost immediately Eren grabs him by the elbow. “Wait.”

Levi can’t even get one step anymore. “Can you stop grabbing me all the time?” he snaps unintentionally. Eren's grip almost loosens completely when he says that, almost lets Levi go forever, and Levi knows his eyes feel heavy and watery just so he won't have to see the way Eren is looking at him right now.

But Eren doesn't let go, not this time.

“I want to try,” he says slowly, the plaid drooping off the side of his shoulder. “I want to try… with you.”

“Try what?”

Eren’s eyebrows knit together. “Uhm… liking you? Going out? With you? I don’t know… whatever it is that you want. I still want to do a real favour for you, so…”

“Not any more of this Favour shit,” Levi replies lowly, about to force himself to walk off if his limbs refuse to listen to him any longer. “If you’re going to treat this like a game then you can forget about all of this. You can forget about me ever—”

“No, I mean!” Eren grips Levi’s arm tighter when Levi tries to wretch out of his hold, and Eren’s grip on him is seriously going to bruise. “That came out wrong… I just meant that I really want to do something that you want, and if this is the way that we can keep being together…”

Levi stops him right there. “You don’t get it,” he growls, everything he’s ever bottled up about wanting to go with Eren to prom just as friends, or signing up for way too many elective classes with Eren in university just so he could spend more time with him, or sharing a Netflix account because it seemed like a good idea at the time—suddenly all of that wants to come pouring out in a cesspool of more and more things that Levi wished they shared.

They're friends, best friends, and this is all so wrong. This shouldn't be happening. Levi shouldn't be feeling like this even when he's begging and begging Eren to have felt the same way this whole time. To feel the same way right now.

“I care about you! I always have, Levi.”

But never in the same way.

“You just don’t get it,” Levi snaps, shaking his head. “We’ll still be friends regardless, I'm trying to make that clear. You’re supposed to want more than this because _you_ want it. You've been so dense about love all these years, you have no damn clue. This isn’t like any of those favours that we've been entertaining ourselves with before. It's not a goddamn favour. _Don't_ make me a favour, please—”

“If you could shut up for just one second!” Eren has both his hands together now on Levi’s arm, teeth bared, head down, and staring at the floor.

It's the first time Levi feels like his entire body is being lit on fire, and Eren being so genuinely upset at him. It's like he can't bear to bring Eren in close nor let him go, and that is none other than a product of his own selfish desires—to confess and then push Eren away, to pay for their Netflix and then hold it over Eren's head, to feel pity for himself whilst not being willing to listen to anything else. It's so hard to know what to do.

“I… want to do this because I want to. For myself, too. I really, really want to.” Eren pauses, and Levi can feel the space and the air between them close in quietly, slowly. Eren takes a breath. “Did you think that I would kiss you just because you wanted me to?” Eren asks with hurt in both his voice and his eyes.

Levi has no idea how to respond to that, his jaw glued completely shut, and Eren’s fingers quiver, alternating faint bullets of pressure against his arm.

“Maybe I didn’t hate it,” Eren goes on to say, a little breathless, head getting lower and lower with every word. “Maybe I even… liked it, okay? Is that so hard for you to consider in _your_ dense head? And maybe I did it because you asked me to, but I also did it because it's something we've never done together. And maybe that's all I've ever fucking wanted, to just do things with you and spoil you and make you happy! So, I—I don’t know why! I can’t explain it…”

That's it. Levi's the one who's been spoiled this whole time.

His arm is starting to sweat from where Eren refuses to let go. He can’t handle much more of this—if Eren were to ask him to not go back to his place, or god forbid to kiss him again, Levi can already feel a violent headache coming on. He's already hit his capacity for the number of emotions he's run through and now he's running on overdrive.

“So, what are you saying?”

It might have been a mistake to ask that since Eren’s never been much of a sayer, he’s always been more of a doer. But that’s also a good thing since Levi’s never been one to need sonnets or waxing poetic love songs or balcony speeches. The only thing he’s ever needed was to go to sleep and wake up knowing Eren was going to be around somewhere.

“I think I knew you were going to ask me to kiss you sometime,” Eren says. “And I think I've always wanted to kiss you, too.”

“Oh, really? As friends?” Levi says incredulously.

“Yes, as friends. Because that's what friends do.”

Levi scoffs. “They kiss each other?”

“They share things.”

But for all of the times Levi calls him out on things, it seems this time it's Eren who's in the right.

He's just never what Levi expects, even when they've known each other for a million years, probably in a past life or something, too. Even now when Eren stares at him, eyebrows creasing, watching him carefully, it's like he hasn't changed a bit from how he's always looked at Levi, other than now he might actually be staring at Levi's lips and contemplating whether or not it would be possible to continue where they left off earlier.

“So, what are you saying?” Levi repeats impatiently.

When the space between them closes and Eren is cornering him against the other side of the hallway, forehead leaning to gently touch his, hand sliding from his elbow to slip into the palm of his hand and lace tightly through his fingers, Levi doesn’t think he’ll be able to logic his way out of this. Not that it works usually, anyway. He’s already feeling lightheaded, and the radiating heat and feverish breathing from Eren is not helping in the slightest.

“Do you want to try sharing one more thing?” Eren murmurs, and Levi’s heart thunders so loudly in his chest that he can just barely get a response out.

“And what would that be?”

Eren is a furious shade of red, but so is Levi, likely.

It's both entirely overwhelming and entirely underwhelming.

If he’s about to mention something like _love_ or _boyfriends,_ even if he has no fucking idea what he’s saying, like all of the times before when Eren’s always gotten what he’s wanted at the expense of Levi’s mental and emotional health, then Levi knows there’s nothing he can do. Like always, he’ll just be along for the ride. But of course, like all those other times, he probably won’t mind at all.

-

Levi shifts a little on his spot on the couch, dying under the scrutiny of Eren’s gaze, and begins saying finally, “You’re smart and you’re kind. Sometimes you’re funny. You’re overly generous, you give too much of yourself sometimes.”

Eren nods eagerly, not quite caring about what Levi had to say in those last ones. “Mmhm?”

“But you always know the right thing to do even if you don’t always know the right thing to say…”

“Same with you. You’re also—”

“Will you let me finish?” Levi huffs, and Eren turns bright red, giving him the go-ahead with a slighter nod of his head.

Where was he? Eren’s been more of a doer… He… Sometimes, he…

Overwhelmed by his own thoughts, Levi groans and Eren becomes visibly confused. But the moment’s lost. He can’t think anymore when Eren’s staring so intently at him, fingers twitching like he wants to reach out and grab Levi’s hand again, even if that may only be wishful thinking.

Levi turns his head to the side, mutters, “You’re stupid” under his breath, and Eren is practically gaping at him.

“Hey!”

But he doesn’t take it back. This whole thing has only succeeded in doing a number on his heart, and really it should be Levi asking why someone like Eren could like someone as utterly exhausting as him.

“I love when you do that,” Eren had offhandedly said to him one time when they were playing some video game and he had let Eren win during a round. For a brief moment, he'd thought Eren had somehow caught onto him.

“Hm?”

But then Eren continued unflinchingly to say, “When you have your Levi trademark straight face on but sometimes you’ll turn your head to the side and smile because you think I can’t see it. Well, I can, you know. Just so you know.”

_I love you._

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Levi had said back, now more than acutely aware of the angle of his head and every fractional movement of his lips.

_No, you don’t._

But Eren seemed happy anyway, radiating off a smile of his own. “Good. That means you’ll probably keep doing it.”

_Yes, I do._

Suddenly, Levi has the urge to bury his face into the plaid of Eren’s shoulder and just lay there like that for a while. Eren does it to him all the time, so why can’t he for once?

-

“What are we doing this for?”

“Research!” Eren answers with resolution, fiddling with the remote while he lays his legs across Levi’s lap. “So we know how to do it properly.”

“How is our relationship something we can do improperly?” Levi bemoans, watching as Eren scans down the Netflix menu until he gets to the LGBT category.

“You don’t think that watching gay things makes you a better gay?” Eren asks, somehow still with a serious expression and eyes trained on the TV screen.

“No? …What? What does that even mean?”

There’s nothing he can say by now that would stop Eren from scrolling through the movies for one that looks good. He’s been going on about how they’ve pretty much been ignoring the LGBT section on Netflix and somehow that means they’re not getting their money’s worth. Well, Levi's money's worth. “We should watch two guys, right? That’s more relatable?” Eren wonders out loud.

“I’m leaving.”

But Eren’s weight holds him in place on the couch like he was anticipating this would happen. “You’re not going anywhere. Mostly because there’s no way I’m watching this by myself.”

Obviously, this would be the first time Levi watches a movie centred on two gay lovers. He hasn’t heard many good things about the genre—mainly that a good lot of them end in tragedy, and he’s not looking forward to the potential trauma these might give Eren. So for every movie that Eren periodically pauses on to inspect before going on to the next one, Levi quickly scans the summary to make sure it seems free of tragedy of any kind.

“This one seems good?” Eren says dubiously.

Levi squints his eyes at the bland picture and the summary that seems like any other romance story. “It seems fine,” he says skeptically. No mention of violence. No mention of death. Guess he’ll just have to see.

They cozy up together into the couch, though with Levi mentally ready to run to the fridge and drown Eren in beer and booze until he can’t remember anything should the movie give even the slightest hint as to being anything less than favourable.

-

“That wasn’t so bad,” Levi ends up saying an hour and fifty minutes later, not helping the wash of relief that goes over him when the picture fades from the screen and the credits begin to roll and the gay lovers live happily ever after. “How would you rate it?”

Eren is silent for a bit, a rather quizzical expression on his face. “Umm, I guess… it would be a 9.5?”

Levi puts Eren’s legs aside so he can get up and stretch since he feels like hadn’t moved an inch the entire last two hours. “Hm? Why are you giving such a high score if you’re unsure it’s even good?”

“Well…” Eren leans back against the couch, scratching at his head a bit. “Honestly, halfway through I realized we weren’t watching gay porn.”

Levi blanches, staring at Eren midway through a stretch of his arms to see if he’s joking. The neutral expression on his face tells Levi he’s not. “What the hell? Why on Earth would you think that…?”

“Sorry, this whole time I thought we were going to see what gay porn was like.”

“Netflix doesn’t have gay porn!”

-

It’s bright after Levi demands to open the blinds and let the afternoon sun into the room, something that Eren never seems to do even in his own home. That’s why he’s so pale—clearly a deficiency in Vitamin D. Clearly.

Levi’s spent twenty minutes filling out paperwork whilst lying in bed when he hears from the kitchen, “Have you always been gay?”

He nearly scratches a huge line down the Terms of Agreement. “What? Uh, yeah. Yeah, I suppose,” he practically yells back, trying to drown out the sound of his voice through sheer loudness.

“Huh. Interesting.”

For some reason, Eren has been asking a lot about the gays recently. And Levi sort of gets it—he’s been trying to figure out his identity, where he fits on the spectrum, considering he did have a girlfriend at one point all those years ago, one who was in fact taller than him. Neither of them like talking about it much. But if you ask Levi, that whole thing wasn’t really a _thing_. It didn’t even last that long considering it was barely even a month into living together that she’d ended up moving out. Eren was just obliging her because he’s too nice, couldn’t say no.

God, Eren could just be obliging him, too, even though they’ve gone over this a million times. He keeps forgetting not to think like that anymore.

“So, you never had a crush on another guy or…?” Eren goes on, prying for information, really taking his time with that juice.

It’s not as if they’d never gone over this topic before. It’s just that there was never anyone Levi really considered in that way.

But as he thinks about it, he’s suddenly thrown back to that one time in gym when Eren had gotten so excited from winning a ‘friendly’ game of soccer that he’d taken his shirt off and thrown it somewhere over the fence outside. It had actually gotten caught _on_ the fence, but after about ten minutes of Levi rattling it it had eventually come down, smelling of sweat and something else that Eren was always known for smelling like. Levi could never quite pin it down.

“Well… yeah,” Levi replies with a hard blink. He says it so quietly that he doesn’t think Eren would hear it from the other room.

But somehow he does. “Really, who?” Eren throws back.

“You didn’t know him,” Levi says, busily scribbling on the papers even though Eren can’t actually see him. “He wasn’t in any of your classes.”

“So this was what, high school?”

“Mm.”

Eren suddenly emerges into the bedroom with two glasses of juice, coming over to set them down on the bedside table where Levi’s cup accidentally spills a few drops onto some of the papers.

“Careful!”

“What did you like about him?” Eren begins to say, getting more invested in this than Levi thought he would.

It seems like the Favour doesn't stop there as Eren slips into bed next to Levi, quick to bury his face into the crook of Levi’s back and slithering a hand around his middle. He better not try any funny shit. Levi’s got to get this done, and luckily Eren’s hand stays still and flat against the skin of his stomach.

“He was very—determined. Very rambunctious. Outgoing,” Levi says with almost gritted teeth.

“Rambunctious? Was he some sort of marsupial?” Eren mutters into him.

Levi ignores that. “He was, you know, your typical guy,” he embellishes, and Eren stops moving against him altogether. “Handsome… of course. Determined… rambunctious…”

“You already said that.”

“I didn’t say handsome.”

“Was he, by any chance, me?” Eren accuses, clawing a hand into the front of Levi’s cotton shirt, drawing him in close like he’s at risk of being stolen away from 10-years-ago-Eren.

“If you’re any of those things, you’re a marsupial. Your words not mine.”

“Hey!!”

Levi finishes all the signing and going over the last of his papers, not quite sure how good his signatures are when he’d been doing most of the signing against the air. “ _Done_ ,” he says anyway, throwing the pen down on the nightstand and downing the rest of his glass of juice, careful not to get it on the sheets though it’s hard with Eren wrapped around him. “I guess this is also officially my property now, isn’t it?” He gestures around the room, letting his hand fall back behind him against Eren's jutted hip. “It feels good to be home _._ ”

Eren makes a weird noise, somewhere between a hum and a squeak. Levi can't see his face but for a while Eren doesn't let him—just remains there with his arms around Levi, breathing steadily. After a while Levi thinks he might have actually fallen asleep.

But there's something about the way his nose and breath hot against the back of his neck draws Levi in like he’s waiting for something even if Levi can already guess what it is. There isn't even time to prepare for the kiss he’s immediately pulled into when Levi turns his head back, with Eren’s lips ready and sweet and warm against his. The languid way his tongue nudges against Levi's, hand caressing his jaw, fingers padding on the back of his neck that melt into him, Levi just has to wonder if it was something he'd said.

He pulls back for just a second, sees the sparkle in Eren's eye, slightly flushed from the kiss and their touch and the warm cover of the blankets. “By the way, the first rule of me living here is no more food or liquids in the bedroom. Just so we're clear on that,” Levi announces like it might appear in writing on the agreement paper.

“Oh my god, don’t ruin the moment.” Eren laughs, but then says semi-seriously, “Wait, are you telling me you never want to try food play?”

“And what exactly is that?”

Eren doesn't bother to go into that, saying it's probably not something Levi would like to hear about, though he might eventually warm up to it, Eren's sure of it. But they do kiss a little more, maybe a lot more, and lay there like that for a while just feeling Eren's lips smile against the curve of his jaw for no reason other than he's apparently really happy. He whispers that into Levi's neck.

His hand trails surreptitiously up Levi’s hip and underneath his shirt to poke at his sides, making him recoil. He doesn't have to mention the fact that he's ticklish; Eren should know that already. Which is maybe why he's doing it. He's about to tell Eren off or maybe grab his wandering hands to imprison them in his own like he's used to doing so many times before whenever Eren's misbehaved and given Levi a cute souring look to let him off easy.

And it makes Levi think about how weird it is that they've managed to become like this now, how strange it is that in front of him is the same person he's known forever but also like it's someone entirely different. It's a little like having a decade-long itch that's only now finally, finally being scratched.

“I wish I could have thought to do this sooner with you,” Levi says into Eren's hair with a little bit of somber breathlessness, smelling that smell that makes Levi want to fly away. “Maybe if I hadn't been so stupid.”

He shifts but finds he doesn’t want to move away, even if Eren’s touch and the look that he's giving Levi right now makes him feel so short of breath and so vulnerable. It's a look that seems to trace every detail on Levi's face, memorize every pattern that he's never quite paid attention to until this moment. He'd never thought that, _that look_ , was something that Eren even had the capability of doing until now. He wishes he could bottle it up, save it for a rainy day, and let the days of future stress just melt away with this endearing look that Eren already seems to be a master of. It's completely unfair.

“Hey, did you know that you did this to me one time,” Eren mentions innocuously, rubbing at Levi’s skin with a painfully slow and drawn out unfurling of his thumb and index finger. To the point where Levi actually arches his back unwittingly and probably closes his eyes. Eren goes even quieter when he says, “While you were asleep and we were in your bed. You sleep-molested me.”

“I did not!” Levi protests with a bit of a gasp.

“Yes, you did,” Eren insists, continuing, “And then you got a boner and you didn’t even notice. It was right before you confessed to me. What a perv. Is that the sort of thing best friends do, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I guess that means you’ll keep on doing it, then?”

And Levi's never had any more arguments to pull out when Eren's said things like that.

The days end as they always do. They still eat together, but there's an awful lot of raw fruit since Levi’s fridge now belongs to someone else. The bed they sleep in actually fits the two of them since Eren had the sense to buy a bigger one (Levi won’t tell him that he’ll actually miss squeezing together). The movies they watch don't get particularly better or worse. Levi still pays for their Netflix. He isn't sure if he keeps on doing that thing that Eren says he does, but there are definitely times when Eren stares at him longer than necessary.

“You’re still paying half of rent,” Eren had told him, but never followed through on it.

Which is fine since Levi is more than happy to pay him back in a variety of Favours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway thanks, and happy canada day!!! yes ofc i timed this well lmao


End file.
